


An Unforgiving Peace

by Adira_Tyree



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Independent New Vegas, post fnv ending, post honest hearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:32:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adira_Tyree/pseuds/Adira_Tyree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sara is <i>tired</i> of people looking to her for advice. Of people relying on her. Of just about everything. Of the entire Southwest, really. It's time for her to move on, but even that plan stutters as the war between the Sorrows and the White Legs roars up and she is forced to either help Joshua and the Dead Horses eliminate their enemies or find her own way East out of the canyon. But the part that she'll remember the most was the trip with the Dead Horses back to their home on the far Eastern edge of Utah, and traveling with the infamous Joshua Graham for far longer than she'd like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unforgiving Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Complete with fanmix courtesy of my amazing ~~partner in crime~~ artist for the FOBB!! Thank you so much for your work and your cheerleading throughout this crazy journey! Couldn't have done it without you!!!
> 
> Check out the mix [HERE](https://8tracks.com/follyofyouth/rootless) and their blog over [HERE](http://trbl-will-find-me.tumblr.com/)!

Sara Mia Martina Catalina Li Hernandez was _tired_. This time, it was Joshua and Daniel with their Dead Horses and Sorrows fighting off the White Legs. Before that, it was Freeside and New Vegas fighting off the NCR, and the Legion, and Mr. House. Before that it had been her own freedom she was fighting for – freedom from the knowledge that the man who had tried to kill her had gotten away with his crime and was even benefiting from it. The people of a little town just South of the Arizona border fighting off the Legion. Of Northern California, dealing with a recurrent band of raiders that took women and children as spoils to sell. Of Vancouver Island, as a group from the mainland to the North worked to commit genocide in hopes of taking land farther South.

All up and down the coast, as far North as Jasper Park in snowy Canada, as far South as Hermosillo in Mexico, but no farther East than Flagstaff or Salt Lake City. People asked Sara for her help. And all up and down the coast, up to Canada and down through Mexico, Sara helped them. Why? She had a soft spot for people fighting for their freedoms; if it wasn’t that kind of fight, she didn’t want to help. If someone asked her to help with a territory dispute, that didn’t interest her. A fight between two political factions didn’t interest her either – though New Vegas had been an exception. But dangle the word _freedom_ in front of her face, and she was already reaching for her gun and pulling back her thick, black hair into a braid to keep it out of the way.

Unless it couldn’t be helped, she didn’t stay very long. Sara’s feet were made for walking – she liked to joke about this when trying to find new pairs of boots, since her feet were apparently larger than the average pre-war woman’s were. Finding shoes was hell, which was more of a problem than she liked to admit. When she’d found a nice new pair that was barely worn in at all in New Vegas, she knew they had to be broken in with something new and special. So she joined a caravan heading into the canyon to the North. Unfortunately, nothing went as expected. Not that it _ever_ did.

That was how she’d met Joshua, and Daniel, in the first place. He wasn’t someone she’d sought out, the legendary _Burned Man_ that the Legion was so afraid of, but it had been interesting getting to spend time with someone like herself. Someone who told Death to fuck off and flipped Him the bird on His way back into the shadows.

Now that she was able to return to New Vegas, map in hand and bags packed, she found she didn’t want to go.

“Perhaps you find more beauty in this place than you’ve realized,” Joshua had suggested, not looking up from his Psalms. Sara was pretty certain he wasn’t actually _reading_ the pages so much as he was remembering exactly what they said, since he would sometimes turn the pages while not even looking at the book. “Who covers the heaven with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow upon the mountains?”

“I’m pretty certain I’m just tired of being told it’s my job to work out everybody’s problems when all they really care about is a dam,” Sara told him, not even blinking at the psalm. It was just how he spoke, in questions and psalms.

Joshua didn’t exactly invite her to go with the Dead Horses. It wasn’t his place to do so. However, he didn’t tell her that she couldn’t go, and he didn’t seem surprised when she followed them the morning they left for Dead Horse Point. She knew it was going to be hard travel, and that she would probably not only have worn-in but also worn-out her new boots by the end of it. But what the heck – she was a courier, and a courier’s feet were made for walking.

 

* * *

 

 

“So just how far are we talking here?” Sara was up for travel, more than up for it – the further the better really. If she could find a good reason and work along the way, she’d probably make her way all the way to the other coast, if only to see it. She’d grown up along the coast of the Gulf of California, and more than once since she left home she’d found herself craving the sights and sounds of the water.

“By man’s road, we could perhaps make the journey in three months. These are soldiers. There are now children or elderly to make the journey hard.” Joshua looked out over the encampment that his group of Dead Horses had occupied for so many months to aid their allies – The Sorrows. “But these people will take God’s road. And that may take much longer. It’s impossible for us to know.”

“And by _God’s Road_ ,” Sara asked, her eyebrows raised and arms crossed, “I assume you mean—”

Joshua cut her off with a raised hand, saying, “whatever way the sun comes from and a little to the North. They will cut through the canyons or along the river, heading wherever they believe will lead them home. It is their journey, and not for me to decide.”

“Even if the way they take could be weeks longer?”

“More likely months,” Joshua admitted. “It will depend on whether or not they choose to follow the river.

The river sounded rather appealing. Spending months wandering around a canyon with nothing but the sun and a prayer as guide _didn’t._ Sara sighed, combing her fingers through her too-long hair. It was hot and itchy, but she hadn’t been anywhere where she could get a proper haircut since she left Freeside – and she wasn’t about to let anyone without at least Sergio’s level of skill come at her with scissors any time soon. She wasn’t that desperate yet.

There was little work to be done to pick up the campsite. Angel Cave had been converted not long after the war to a reasonable bunker, and had already held the shelving and cabinets Joshua had used. Anything he didn’t need to bring home he simply left tucked away somewhere it wouldn’t be damaged – perhaps some scavenger could use it someday. Sara didn’t complain. It meant carrying less, and she was already planning on bringing more than was probably wise.

As a courier, she needed only a few things. A weapon or two to keep her safe and to hunt with when necessary, medical supplies, and a journal to keep notes and paperwork in. Despite the fact that she kept herself moving and left the past behind her everywhere she went, there were still a few extra things in her pack. Though she was no longer religious, somewhere in the bottom of her pack sat an old rosary – it was more because it was something her mama had given her than because of the memories that came with it, and she could always pawn it for something if she really needed to. The remaining one of the pair of bullets that Doc Mitchell had dug back out of her skull were probably rattling around with it, the other having been re-poured into a bullet shape again and was now firmly planted in a similar position in Benny’s head. The chain she’d kept it on had snapped, otherwise she’d be wearing it around her neck.

Most things that she really wanted to keep hold of, she packed up and stuck in a box with a letter and sent back home to her mama and sisters in Mexico. The last of these she’d sent had included such items as Benny’s gun (something she was sure her mother would adore, given its image of the Virgin Mary in the hand grip), the Mark of Caesar given to her by Caesar (and the weird dog-hat the guy who gave it to her had tended to wear), and Boone’s beret. She’d decided to keep the medal the Boomers had given her and her Brotherhood dog tags on her pack with her various other “membership” clues. They fit in nicely with the Followers’ cross and the Tops poker chip she’d gotten in the New Vegas area. They were pinned on in a little cluster beneath her Mojave Express badge, which was next to a string of other Courier group membership badges.

Her most recent acquisition however, Joshua’s own engraved .45 pistol, was strapped to her leg. It had temporarily replaced her previous pistol, her favorite hunting revolver she’d picked up in northern Oregon as a reward for driving out a group of slavers, which had been damaged during the final battle against the White Legs a few days earlier. Joshua wasn’t able to fix it, so she’d need to bring it to a chapter of the Gun Runners or someone similar next time she had a chance. Until then, the .45 would do.

Apparently it would be quite a while before she’d be seeing them, though.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t make plans,” she muttered, reaching for a cigarette out of habit before remembering she hadn’t had any since she’d run out the month before. It was going to be a very long walk.

 

* * *

 

 

Keeping herself moving was something that Sara excelled at. For years now she’d made an art form of finding things to motivate her to just keep going to that next landmark before she stopped for anything. Whether it was to stop to pee, to dig lunch out of her pack, or to set down for the night, she could keep herself going just to that next point almost indefinitely.

The Dead Horse people had decidedly not practiced this art ever before, at least not by her measure.

Sure, it was easy enough to keep one person going, but the next one had already reached their next landmark and really had to pee, or was just plain tired and needed a break. Long trips weren’t something these people did normally. They weren’t nomadic, they were settled farmers in their homeland, and only a handful were even seasoned hunters. While they had the endurance to fight or to farm, able to spend endless hours in the heat of the sun, Sara found that the idea of walking for a full day was completely foreign to them. Even for more than a solid hour was proving difficult.

To make matters worse, Joshua wouldn’t tell them they should do things any differently. He’d given them suggestions at the beginning of the journey, sure, but now that they were moving it wasn’t his show. Apparently it wasn’t her show either, because the one time she’d tried to convince them to keep moving for another few hours instead of stopping for the night before it was even approaching sundown, he’d given her such a glare she thought he might have shot her. The next time she’d even thought about it he’d, in more words than she had patience to try and remember, told her not to.

With nothing to do but wait for the sun to set, her bedroll waiting patiently for her to want to sleep, she sat herself down on the dusty ground next to Joshua. “I was only going to tell them that we could make it a lot farther tonight still,” she muttered, crossing her legs in front of her.

“This is where they wanted to stop,” he said with a shrug. “It is where they believe they are supposed to wait for dawn.” As he watched the Dead Horses settling in around a fire to heat up supper, he quietly flipped through his psalms. He wasn’t even reading the pages anymore, turning ones he hadn’t even looked at, but she could just barely hear his deep voice reciting each word under his breath.

At the end of the first day, she’d been surprised. At the end of the second day, it still seemed strange, but began to border on concerning. Still, it could just take them a while to get into the grove of travel. That of course was it, she thought. But then it was the end of the first week, and she was fairly certain she could still see where they’d started out from. A tiny, frustrated voice in the back of her head reminded her she could probably get back to that miserable canyon in about two days’ travel if she pushed hard enough, but to what end? The point behind this idea had been adventure. Somewhere, something new. If she quit now, she might never get to the end of this twisted path ever. The thought of leaving any road untraveled made he frown, and made her keep on stomping along next to Joshua’s damnable psalms and the Dead Horses’ lazy strides.

At least she wasn’t the only one who had been more than a little frustrated as of late. Follows Chalk had wanted to take the pre-war roads back, ever curious about “civilization.” She’d almost been surprised that he’d elected to go back home rather than go out and see the world. Of course, she hadn’t been offering to escort him to New Vegas, but she’d still expected him to go. But she also knew that breaking the ties to family could be one of the hardest parts of becoming a wanderer.

What really confused her about it though was his constant fascination with the place. Sure, it was pretty. But one big orange rock to her looked just like the next one; seen one seen them all. Though to her the same held true with people as well, one face not looking particularly different from the next. They all had the same general shape, even if some didn’t have noses or some styled their hair in bizarre ways. The concept was always the same. A place on the body that was more expressive at times than the rest. She’d been focusing on making hers show general disdain most recently.

It never seemed to do any good though. So they continued their slow march homeward. And Sara followed. Because walking was what she was best at.

 

* * *

 

 

The pounding of a headache forced Sara to crack an eye open, just enough to see in the weak light of the smoldering fire she shared with Joshua. The rest of the Dead Horses had all elected to form themselves around a separate fire, leaving just Joshua and herself to this one. She’d wondered aloud if they just didn’t want to be around her. Joshua had said they were a closed-off people, even shutting him out at times despite all he’d done for them, but it wasn’t something personal.

It was simply their culture. They would welcome you in the light, but be wary of you in darkness. It was a reasonable way to live. Having been hurt by trusting strangers before, Sara understood all too well that it was better to seem closed-off than to try too hard to be friendly. Safer. The night watchers would guard the whole group regardless, so there was no reason to be upset by it anyway.

But the night watcher wasn’t the only one awake. In the meager light of the fire she could see Joshua too had been kept up by something he would never admit to. Pain. Pain zinging from one nerve-ending to the next and back. He claimed, some months before, that during the day he could distract himself and pretend it wasn’t there – which, in his mind, meant it wasn’t there. If he couldn’t feel it, it didn’t exist.

During the night though when there was nothing but God and the big starry sky, not enough light to even pretend to look at the book of psalms? The only thing he could distract himself with was his thoughts – which were couched in synapses blindly firing off signals of pain.

Served him right to have to be a little bit human for once.

She shook her head, watching him from under her blanket. He was hunched over, blackened fingertips clawing at the back of his head as he focused on breathing. Deep breath in through the nose, let it out through the mouth. Slowly, don’t gasp it out. Too fast and you’ll get all woozy, flooded, fall because the floor’s pulled out from under you. Don’t forget to breathe. Not too fast. Slow.

Still shaking her head, Sara dragged her sleeping roll over next to his. Instead of sitting next to him though, she knelt down in front of him. “You’ll hurt your fingers,” she muttered quietly to him, slipping lazily into Spanish in her tired state as she gently pulled his hands from his scalp. Joshua didn’t look up at her, barely even seeming to register her being there until he spoke.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said, keeping his voice to a whisper. It took her a moment to realize that he had replied to her in Spanish as well.

Sara just laughed. “I don’t want to hear any complaints tomorrow about how tired you are.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, either. More of it though was that she knew what that kind of pain was like, and didn’t wish it on… most people. “Or that we must stop to fix your bandages, because you clawed your scalp open and got blood all over.”

“I can’t,” Joshua muttered, pulling his hands free from hers to lay them flat in front of her. “I have no fingernails.”

It was a strange thing to not have noticed, Sara knew, but she hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time watching his hands. They were usually wrapped around psalms, anyway. Or a gun. But he was, of course, quite right. The tips of his fingers were disfigured, blackened from years of abuse and ruined skin. It was something she’d seen before in severe burn victims that had been healed with stimpaks. Something about the rapid healing they forced left the skin discolored. Not just darker, but genuinely the color of char. Like a tattoo.

Carefully, she took hold of his hands again. His fingers relaxed, then tensed and tightened around hers. “Then you’ll get bruises instead, and that doesn’t help either. Headaches don’t help anything; you can trust me on that one.” Often enough Sara would wake and see Joshua sitting up and reading, or at least pretending to read. But the fact that she’d never seen him like this didn’t mean it was something new at all. For all she knew, he’d simply been hiding it from her until now when it was too unbearable to bother trying.

For some time, there was silence between them. Joshua stayed silently inside his own pain and Sara inside hers. Occasionally he would squeeze her hands tighter for a brief moment, but neither spoke. Neither wanted to. The night watcher traded off with another of the Dead Horses and got some sleep himself, but neither Sara nor Joshua moved or made notice.

It was hard for Sara to tell which felt worse – the nausea or the exhaustion. The one, of course, fed the other. Being too tired always left her with an upset stomach. Her migraine was the nausea’s source, fueled by how tired she was, which was due to being unable to sleep from her migraine. Being unable to sleep made her head hurt worse, stars seeming to fall from the sky just to dance in her left eye, which of course made everything else worse, which made it even more impossible to sleep. It was a vicious cycle that couldn’t often be cured with anything. Even the most dazing cocktails of chems and alcohol couldn’t knock her out when she was bound in this looping cycle. Benny’s gift to her in exchange for the platinum chip so many months earlier.

Too bad he didn’t take it back when she took back the chip. He got his too, of course, but he didn’t have Doc Mitchell to fix the hole in his head. Even if he did, she wasn’t sure Doc would have wanted to do it.

“How long does it last?” Sara asked. Neither looked up.

Joshua spat a hollow laugh before he answered her. “How long does it take for God to blink?”

“There’s no knowing with mine either.”

 

* * *

 

 

The walk got easier as weeks went by. Eventually they all fell into a rhythm, and, much to Sara’s joy and surprise, they walked longer and stopped less often. It wasn’t as much of a chore now as an adventure to them. The only thing Sara could do then was hope they were headed in the right direction. Thankfully, the sun still seemed to be rising in about the right place, so it seemed that all was well.

Some days would pass quietly with little discussion. Others would be filled with arguments and bickering, wild pointing and gesturing in near every direction. Those days passed slowly. Even after hearing it for months, Sara could only pick out certain words when they talked so quickly. Most days their speech was reasonably easy enough for her to get the gist of conversations, but during arguments or excited conversations? All she caught was fragments.

Sara was used to walking for miles at a time without uttering a word to anyone. What she was _not_ used to was walking for miles at a time with a whole group of people, not speaking to them and not being spoken to. Somehow it was decidedly lonelier, and very frustrating. The conversation was like the constant buzzing of a gnat; she had no idea what it was about, and that made it nothing but noise. Unending, meaningless noise. From dawn until dusk.

Joshua was no help. Sometimes he involved himself in their conversation, others he simply remained silent. If she spoke to him, he would oblige her with a conversation as well, but never did he go out of his way to speak with her. This time though he didn’t even want to hear their conversation. He hanged back, following the core of the group at a distance so that he was a speck hovering in the distance behind them.

She was more than tired of the excited buzzing of the Dead Horses before the sun had reached its mid-point in the sky.

His distance intrigued her. It was new, something different on a journey where little had changed. With no reason not to, she plopped herself down on a rock to wait. When he finally caught up to her, she had poured the sand out of her boots already and had moved on to trying to shake it from her scalp.

“Try not to be so social,” Sara said, standing up and dusting off her clothes. The sudden weight of her pack on her shoulders again made her notice how much they ached. It didn’t matter, she pushed herself; she could put it down for a moment at that bush up ahead. She knew she wouldn’t, but the thought of it felt nice. Kept her going.

Joshua simply continued walking in silence.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “What are they so excited about today? They’re buzzing like newborn cazadors.”

“They’re talking about their families.”

“Their families?”

“Yes. How their children will have grown. For some of them, they will have children that weren’t even born when they left home. Some of the older ones will have learned to hunt by now, or other trade skills. There might have been marriages, new pregnancies, deaths and burials. The home they left will be different from the one they’re returning to.”

Sara shrugged, but the thought of family tugged at her. The last time she’d been home it was for her littlest sister’s wedding. She probably had children of her own by now as well. Part of her hoped so; little Sofia Victoria always had a mothering instinct. Just like their own mother. Always helping people, children, even wounded animals.

The only times Sara ever heard from her sisters or mother was when she went home to them. She never stayed in one place long enough for a letter to make it all the way there and a response to make it all the way back, so they never tried. It meant she’d never heard about her brother’s death until two years after it had happened. That her grandmother had broken a hip and couldn’t get around well anymore was news to her long after it was even considered a problem for her. That the news that her father’s sister remarried into a family much farther south and left like she did opened up old wounds that had already somewhat closed over.

“I see.”

It struck her suddenly that Joshua’s life was likely much like her own, though they did nothing similar. He too came from a large, religious family, and left home to pursue his own interests. He never heard from his parents, or any siblings he might have had, and never knew when major events had happened in his community. His past had been filled with travels, like hers, while he followed Caesar across the Wasteland in his path to conquer it. And when he settled in a canyon in the middle of nowhere, he effectively sealed himself off from society – with the exception of any traders that came across his path.

He’d lived the same kind of life she had. Except his had been largely spent enslaving people while hers had been spent freeing them. And his people had been slaughtered in the name of the man he’d worked for, while hers lived a happy life in a part of Mexico that had miraculously remained untouched by the Legion’s ever-reaching grasp.

“Are you excited to see any of those things?” Sara asked, genuinely curious.

It took Joshua a moment to decide. “No. These people are my responsibility, not my family.”

Sara smirked, punching him in the arm. “Well, fuck them then. That shit they’re doing gives me a headache anyway.”

Joshua shook his head, but Sara could have sworn she heard him laugh too.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t want to wish ill-will on anyone!” Sara shouted, waving her hands around. “I just don’t have any attachment to them! They’re nice people, that’s okay! But what happens to them? That is not for me to know or care about.”

Joshua’s arms were crossed, eyes to the ground as they walked along behind the Dead Horses – at some distance. “ _The wicked borrow and never pay back, but good people are generous with their gifts. Those who are blessed by the Lord will possess the land, but those who are cursed by him will be driven out._ 37:21-22.”

Sara’s nostrils flared as she seethed. “That is _low_. I’m not the only one that’s been wandering the desert for years.”

“ _The voice of the Lord shakes the desert,_ ” Joshua quipped back, kicking at the dirt a bit as they walked.

“ _Nevertheless_ ,” Sara chimed in, “ _with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness_. First Corinthians, 10:5. I can play that game too. Mama brought me to church every Sunday morning, sometimes Sunday afternoon too if she didn’t think I’d listened well enough to the sermon.”

“ _It is better to live in a desert land Than with a contentious and vexing woman._ ”

“Mr. Graham you better have a smirk under those bandages of yours or I’m going to make you need new ones,” she growled, but they both knew that even if he hadn’t been joking she wouldn’t do anything to harm him. At least, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t do anything. The more he spoke, the more she was starting to wonder.

“I would not knowingly lie to you, excepting for the most peculiar or perilous of circumstances,” Joshua said, voice grave. “I might perhaps jest. Though I must say that I find your lack of concern for those around you to be a bit… well, for lack of a better word: concerning.”

“I care when people are truly oppressed. When they are enslaved or beaten or unable to remove themselves from perilous situations.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t help everyone. I’m not a vigilante, I don’t fight crime. If someone is murdered, I can’t do anything about it after the fact. If someone is robbed, that’s tough. Everyone needs to be able to look out for themselves in this world, or they won’t survive it.”

Joshua didn’t say anything in response, but she could hear him frowning – the pages in his mental book of psalms flipping angrily as he searched for something to prove her a horrible human being.

It sounded harsh, she knew. It _was_ harsh. But even he had to know that if she stopped to help out everyone she came across that needed a helping hand, she wouldn’t get anything done for herself. Not that she had much to do. All she did was travel. The courier work just gave her a reason. A reason to keep going from place to place other than the need to not stay in any one place too long.

The Dead Horses were lovely people. They had their quirks, just as any group did, but that wasn’t something that was going to make her stay with them any longer than she had to. Sure, it was a rare treat to find a group of people that was truly welcoming and didn’t make her worry about getting shot when she turned her back. And sure, they had been just fine to stay with while everyone worked on finding a way for her to get out of Zion. But they didn’t have anything that was keeping her there other than knowledge of how to get where they were headed.

That was the most frustrating part of it all. She’d be more than happy to disappear, but she was fairly certain that even if they told her where to head (more than head towards the sunrise and a little bit to the North) she’d end up lost in the canyon for the rest of her life. At least until some poor soul who knew where they were going took pity on her again and helped her out. That wasn’t something she relished the thought of. In truth, the help the Dead Horses had given her was already far and away more than she liked to accept from anyone.

 Joshua spoke up finally, interrupting her thoughts. “I have spent many months defending these people from the rest of the wasteland. The civilized world would take these people and tell them not to live where they do, or how they do. That their peaceful way has no place in this world. That they should move to a larger city, rely on monetary transactions and live in houses like men did before the war. They would tell them that the way they live is wrong, even though it works fine for them. That being different makes life hard for them and that they are too ignorant to realize it.” He shook his head, absently playing with the edges of the bandages wrapped around his fingers with his thumb. “I understand why you live in such an isolated way. I have witnessed, and done myself, enough harm to the world to know that the way you live is even reasonable. I just find sometimes it is difficult to accept that not everyone cares for these people as much as I do. They are my penance, not yours.”

“I don’t have anything against them!” Sara tugged at her hair in frustration. “There’s nothing wrong with them, they have been very helpful, but it’s not my job to save everyone. I’ve saved enough people already.”

“There are always more who need saving.”

“Then I hope there are more people to save them, because I’m not going to be the one to do it. I have my own things to do.”

 

* * *

 

 

The idea of relying on somebody else did not sit well with Sara.

The idea of relying on a whole group of somebody elses sat far worse.

But the idea that she was relying on an entire group of people who were relying on the goodness of God to tell them when to make a right or left turn like every last one of them went by the name ‘Moses?’ That outright made her feel ill at times – so she tried not to dwell on the fact that she was doing just that. It made her head hurt, more so than it normally did.

The best part of it all? She was finally completely lost herself and would have no hope of finding her way without them.

Joshua, for what it mattered, was in the exact same predicament as she was. He just didn’t seem to have nearly as much of a problem with it as she did. He didn’t care one bit that he was lost because he had that same faith that the Dead Horses were on about. Hell, he’d given it to them. And to him, that faith meant believing it was going to go exactly how God wanted, and that was all that mattered.

Well, fuck God.

It was hot. Hotter than it should have been by far for the time of season it was. The river, not that it was ever particularly large in this area, had dried up into a cracked riverbed dotted with pale stones and the occasional rotting fish. It meant that they’d had to double back for water at one point and fill canteens and baskets and bottles and bring any they could manage to carry, then boil it because it was probably foul.

Her skin felt like leather stretched taught on a tanning frame and her lips were cracked so badly that sometimes they’d bleed. Her hair was caked with oil and sweat, and she didn’t even want to think about how badly she needed to wash her body and her clothes – and she wasn’t the only one. The body odor was something she could get used to. It wasn’t like everyone in the wasteland was rich enough to wear clean clothes every day. Joshua was turning out to be a real issue though.

It had been several weeks since he’d changed his bandages fully. For the most part he’d been swapping out pieces whenever they really needed it, though he was keeping his hands and his head in good repair regardless. The rest of his body may as well have been that of a corpse, decomposing in a vile and constant boil under the sun. She’d tried not to mention it, it wasn’t exactly his fault, but it had made him irritable. His irritability didn’t help the tension between them one bit.

“Woman, if you keep on like this for long, I’ll be likely to want to bring you immense pain. I ask you not to tempt me.” Joshua stared grudgingly down at each step he took as he spoke.

“You couldn’t catch me, old man,” Sara threw back. She tried to laugh, but couldn’t find it in her to care. “You’re broken down like an old dog waiting to die. Only the dog smells better.”

“Have you always been so ill-tempered?” Joshua asked, still not looking up. “Or is this something you’ve reserved all for me?”

“You deserve it.”

Joshua was quiet for a moment before responding, long enough that Sara wasn’t sure he was going to. “I may. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much in the long run if I were to do something to deserve a bit more.”

“What, you want to put us _both_ out of our misery?” she snapped. “Tell these idiots to take the fast route, not the God route. It seems God doesn’t want us to get there alive.”

“Then perhaps I should hasten our demise.”

Sara turned around and shoved Joshua hard in the chest, surprising him enough that he couldn’t react in time to save himself a trip to the dirt. In a flash she’d straddled his chest and left her fist poised to slam down against his face. “Isn’t it lucky you’re already bandaged? We won’t need to stop and fix you up.”

He grabbed her fist in his own and crushed it shut, tighter and tighter until it made her eyes water, but she refused to cry out, even when it felt like her bones would shatter under the pressure. With her other hand, she slapped him hard across the face, staring down into his wickedly blue eyes. Neither of them spoke, but after a moment more he let go of her hand. She stood, not bothering to help him up as she walked on.

“If you ever do that again,” Joshua said quietly, though his voice carried easily to her, “you will not be so lucky. I will not stop myself a second time.”

Sara laughed, still trudging on forward. “We’re not worth each other’s time. Not even God can help us out here.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sara and Joshua had the same idea at the same moment, and in that same second they drew their guns and aimed. The heat and the constant grind of travel and the lack of water, topped off with the Dead Horses’ unending patience was driving them both insane.

“I’ve heard that headshots don’t work on you,” Joshua said, his gravelly voice full of spite as he aimed directly at her chest. “Though perhaps a third bullet would do the trick.”

“And I’ve heard you’re a heartless bastard,” Sara snarled, not flinching as she aimed for his forehead. “Most of the rumors were about you were wrong, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You seem not to realize just how many chances you’ve already taken with me.” Joshua took a half step forward. “I could have done this any time I chose, but I waited until you were able to defend yourself.”

Sara laughed, shaking her head. “So you waited until I wasn’t sleeping. How honorable. I can’t believe they still say such horrible things about you, _Legate_.”

“Only the best, I’m sure,” he laughed back, an unfamiliar darkness creeping into his tone.

Sara steadied her arms, breathing slow. The same part of her that had taken pleasure in gutting the men who frequented Caesar’s tent wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger and send another bastard onto the pyre. Of course, there was the lingering question as to whether or not that would accomplish anything with him.

But there was also another part of her, a tiny one, reminding her that without him there – bastard or no – she would not only be left to the mercy of the Dead Horses, or just the canyon itself if she chose to avoid them, but if they kept her on for some reason she would have no one to talk to for the remainder of the journey.

“You remind me of him, you know. Of your old friend, that Cesar,” she said, still pronouncing it in her native way. The ruler himself had never said anything against it, though she had always loved the way it made that Inculta grit his teeth. “That charisma, it keeps you alive longer than you should be. It didn’t win him his life in the end.”

“I never thought it would.”

“Do you hate me for killing him?”

“He was a friend, yes. But that did not mean he was any less of a maniac. I admit that involving myself in his affairs was a mistake, but I cannot undo the past. He tore what bond we shared when he slaughtered my people.” Joshua’s eyes narrowed. “I would like to hope he died painfully.”

“Then I have done you a favor. He did.” Sara smiled, lowering her gun finally. “I made him submit to my desires and I slit his throat, leaving his body to rot in the sun. Even his corpse still wears that crown, last I knew.”

“Did you have to bed all of them to take them down?” Joshua asked with a snide cackle.

“No. Some of them it was just for the fun of it.” She grinned and shook her head. “Messy work. I think Inculta’s guts are still stained into my shirt. The guards distracted easily enough. I tried to be quick with Lucius; he was always fair to me.”

Joshua squinted at her, slowly lowering his gun. “I said I’d never lie to you. I’ve kept that promise, perhaps a little too well.” He flicked the safety on with his thumb. “You are grating, apathetic, blasphemous, and all around quite difficult to tolerate for extended periods of time.” Not holstering his weapon, he took careful steps towards her – apparently not having overlooked that her own gun was still ready to fire if she chose. “Yet I find your company would be something I’d miss for the remainder of the journey to Dead Horse Point. I owe you a debt of gratitude for your slaughter of the Legion, though I must always hold you in contempt for taking my chance for revenge from me.”

“Don’t start lying just to make me happy,” Sara said, crossing her arms. “I don’t want it. Be blunt. At least your harsh words are true ones.”

He stopped in front of her, taking the gun from her hands, clicking on the safety, and slipping it back into the holster at her side. “I can’t stand the way you look at me.”

“Good. I can’t stand looking at you.” She smirked, arms still crossed over her chest. “You’re too tall. It hurts my neck.”

Not taking his eyes from hers, Joshua knelt down in front of her on one knee. “Is this better?”

All Sara could do was laugh. “You really are heartless, aren’t you.”

 

* * *

 

 

The worst part about the trip, after the explosion between her and Joshua that nearly ended at least one of their lives, anyway, was the moment when they first saw Dead Horse Point in the distance. It was the point where they both realized that she really could, now, leave any time she chose. The point where she had to make a conscious decision to stay, rather than a passive one. Where she chose to just deal with her problems instead of running from them.

What made it so bad was that she’d rather travel with him than alone. Despite their clashing opinions, beliefs, and ways of living, she would rather be with him, and the rest of the Dead Horses, than be alone. Over the weeks she’d grown rather accustomed to traveling alongside him. Even when she wanted to slit his throat, she forced herself to remember that he was the reason she was able to keep traveling, the reason she was able to keep heading East instead of being stuck on the Western coast. The reason that she wasn’t abandoned alone in the middle of the canyon.

That didn’t mean, however, that she felt she owed him even the slightest debt of gratitude. And he didn’t ask her to feel she did. Sometimes that made it easier. He didn’t expect her to like him, and somehow that was likeable to her. It made the days pass easier, and the more days that passed the easier they went.

“You could leave, you know,” Joshua said quietly one night as they were banking the fire to go to sleep. “If you so desired. They would not be offended if you were to do so. It is not as though you cannot handle yourself in this place.”

“I could.” Sara combed through her hair with her fingers as she spoke. “But it’s not so dangerous to travel in a group as it is alone. It will only be a few days more. Besides, how would you keep from being so bored without me here to annoy you?”

“It would provide me with more chances to review my psalms. One can never study the texts of one’s faith too much.”

“Bullshit. And I’m more fun anyway. It’s good for you to keep your nose out of that book for a while. At least you’ll watch where you’re stepping.”

“I step along the path of the lord.”

“Watch your feet. He likes to throw rocks down on the road.”

 

* * *

 

“There will be a hunt soon,” Joshua said quietly, stirring the fire so that sparks floated up toward the sky before falling back down to land around them. “A tradition with the Dead Horses, feasting upon the return of a group of their own. They will perform a hunt on their own, but we will be expected to do the same as well – to show we mean no mal intent.” He dropped the stick he’d been using so that it landed parallel between them.

“So we have to kill something to show to them what peaceful people we are?” Sara quirked an eyebrow, shaking her head. “These traditions I will never understand.”

Joshua continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “Despite the fact that it is only the two of us, we will still be expected to make as large a contribution as possible—”

“Again, to show that we couldn’t hurt anyone if we tried.”

“—but the type of animal doesn’t matter. It could be several smaller geckos or perhaps just one yao guai. We must also enter the settlement after the Dead Horses themselves have all been returned home.”

“To prove we’re just all one big family, of course.”

“Sara.”

“Mr. Graham.” She said it in a tone of mock seriousness, sitting up perfectly straight and giving him a blank, questioning look – all while trying not to burst out laughing. She knew she was annoying him, but patronizing him while he tried to talk about anything serious had turned out to be a new favorite pastime for her.

“While you may not take this seriously, they will. If we do not properly perform this hunt, they could choose not to let us in to Dead Horse Point.” He glared at her, but kept his tone calm.

“And then you would have to wander the wastes with me forever. Such tragedy.” Sara shook her head in ‘despair.’ She could barely contain her laughter any longer, little snorts and cut-off giggles escaping unbidden.

“I think I’d rather be set aflame a second time,” Joshua said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “You are a difficult one to live with, woman.”

Sara leaned over, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I try my best, just for you.” With that, she could contain herself no more and burst into a fit of giggles, collapsing back onto her sleeping roll and stomping her feet. To her surprise Joshua laughed right along with her.

For most of the evening, the book of psalms remained untouched in Joshua’s pack as they planned out their hunt. In the morning they would scout for any suitable animals, and if none were found they would take down one of the larger golden geckos that Sara had spotted during the day. It would mean heading back to head forward, but a grand kill it would be. After Joshua conferred with the Dead Horses they were traveling with to be sure they weren’t going to hunt the same animal, they both took to their sleeping mats and stared up at the sky.

The night was brighter than usual, with a full moon illuminating the world around them in an eerie blue glow. It was something Sara had always hated about sleeping out in the desert. The light made it feel alien, with only the silhouettes of trees and brush blocking the view of the stars above. The light of the dying fire cast an angry red glow on the nearest ones. Sara tried not to look at them, her eyes flicking from one place to the next and eventually landing on Joshua himself. For once, he seemed content to simply lay back and watch the world.

“No reading tonight?” Sara asked in genuine surprise.

Joshua shrugged. “I already know the words.”

 

* * *

 

The plan was simple enough, though whether or not it would work was questionable. The Gecko had placed itself that morning a little farther from where they had expected to find it, but the plan was set. Sara would wait for the creature to move closer to a particular bend in the canyon, a dead end. Laying amidst the brush and rocks, Joshua would wait for it to head towards him. If they were lucky, one or two good shots would take the beast down. If they weren’t lucky, at least they both were good shots.

It turned out they weren’t entirely lucky.

Sara was able to turn the creature in to the crook in the canyon, but instead of becoming confused and heading back the other way, it simply started climbing straight up the cliff face. Claws sank deep enough into the rock for it to propel itself easily upward and away from the strange woman and her loud noises, not quite in proper range for either hunter. Both shot towards it, aiming for its head or back or any part of it they could hit, but the creature wiggled its way upward in a weaving pattern. They both saw it – Joshua, scrambling up from where he’d hidden himself earlier, landed a shot only seconds before Sara’s followed.

Legs still scrambling for purchase, it dropped, dead, to the ground with a sickening crash. Even though it lay there dead, its clawing fingers still twitched for purchase on the rock above.

“Well,” Sara panted, leaning over with her hands on her knees, “that did not go as expected!”

Joshua dropped his pistol back into its holster and shoved the gecko over onto its stomach, surveying the back of its head. Two shots had hit it, coming from very different directions. “It seems we both are to be the celebrated beast slayer.”

“You expect me to let you take all the credit?” Sara laughed, still panting slightly. “You get too much praise already.”

“Then you can help to carry the burden of that praise,” Joshua said pointedly, grabbing one of the creatures’ arms and hefting it over his shoulder. Rolling her eyes, Sara did the same.

“This is stupid,” she muttered under her breath – intentionally switching into her native language. “I’m barely even five feet tall. How does he expect this to work?”

“Badly,” Joshua admitted, in English. “But better than if I were to drag it back on my own.”

Sara continued her Spanish muttering the entire way back to camp – and Joshua let her, occasionally filling in with a response or two in English. By the time they got back, it was almost comfortable (bilingual) conversation.

 

* * *

 

 

_The days before him were not as good as we remember. Looking back, it’s easy to see just how much he’s done for us. Back then, we lost more of our men in war, more of our women to disease, more of our children, land, livestock to anything imaginable. Even the sky would sometimes reach out to strike us down, though we were not a violent people. We were ignorant._

_He showed us the way._

_When we found him, he too had been struck down by sky – in the way we had seen before where those above reach down in a flash of light to take you to death. But he survived, skin blackened by the force of it. His wounds were long scabbed-over when we saw him. We sought to give him funerary rights, when we saw him lying face down in the dirt near the riverbed, but he still breathed._

_Our healer wasn’t sure he could save the man. Anyone the skies wanted dead was sure not to rise again with the morning sun. For many days he lay in deep sleep, skin slathered with salves and ointments to keep from burning further. Some places fared better than others. But when he finally woke, he still felt the flames inside his skin._

_From then he spent nearly a full moon cycle in the cold spring at the bottom of the canyon. Most who went in there could only stand a few moments of the cold, but it kept him from pain and so he stayed for weeks. In that time he learned our language, and we came to understand why the skies had punished him, and that his survival meant he still had work to do to repent for his endless sins. He was a man who had seen his own crimes for what they were for the first time, who sought healing of the soul._

_The world outside our land is a wicked place; we have seen it for ourselves before and what we never witnessed he has told us of. Lands where one man will kill another for a meal or for the shirt on his back. Where leaders are not held accountable for their actions, where soldiers kill in joy rather than in sorrow. Joshua did not hide the fact that he came from these places, that he too did terrible things._

_He has shown us how to do more than just survive in this place, but to thrive in it. Better ways to cook, how to maintain our tools and weapons so that they don’t simply need to be replaced whenever something goes wrong with them. We didn’t know how to fix a jammed gun before, how to keep a knife sharp and oiled. How to keep herds and grow crops. He showed to us the ways of the God that kept him from death to allow him redemption. Lead us in holy war against those who would spread the hate of the civilized lands ever further._

_And he has not forced these things on us. We keep to our traditional homes and our hunts, our music and feasts and stories. But we are not so ignorant as to turn away help when it is offered, just for the sake of turning it away and keeping to tradition. Everything he has given us is a gift he has given us. We owe our new way of life to him. We are not forced to wander the desert anymore. Joshua has shown us how to find God, and He is everywhere here._

 

* * *

 

 

It took Sara some time after hearing the story of how Joshua came to the Dead Horses to understand what about it had bothered her. Legends and folk-tellings of real events were not uncommon in the wasteland, though they tended to get bigger and more fictional with every retelling. Most of them didn’t bother her – most of them were just stories that started at “Jeb killed the iguana that was eating your carrots” and ended with “ _and then the deathclaw roared down at him, and Jeb just shot it square between the eyes with that rocket launcher he stole off that dead Boomer._ ” It was normal exaggeration.

The problem she had with “the story of Joshua” was that the events themselves weren’t exaggerated. The importance of and the meaning behind them was. He hadn’t done any of the things he had because of God demanding him to show them the path, he’d done them to ease his own guilty conscience for murdering and/or enslaving thousands of tribals just like them in years past. And he’d justified to them his cruelty by explaining to them that God would forgive him and that he was making up for it now.

It was a load of brahmin shit and they both knew it.

Or did they? Sara knew it, to be sure, but Joshua might have not even realized what he was doing as he did it.

She was more than glad when he spent most of the day tucked away in his little cave doing whatever it was he did in there. It gave her time to formulate a response to her own revelation. Because if he’d been there when she’d figured it out, she probably would have beaten the hell out of him – which wouldn’t help anything for anyone. Though it would certainly feel great.

The best time to confront him about it would be over dinner – when they would both have to sit there and look both calm and civil the entire time.

“We need to talk,” she said quietly, not looking up from her plate.

Joshua, despite being unwilling to eat in others’ view, attended every meal for at least a short amount of time. For most of the trip, he had settled down next to her simply because she had so much trouble communicating with the Dead Horses ost of the time. They would often become caught up in a story and speak so quickly that their words tumbled together to the point they were unintelligible to non-native speakers. At least then Joshua was around to translate for her – or tell them to calm down a bit.

He nodded once to show he’d heard her, but said nothing.

She kept her voice quiet as she continued. “These people worship you.”

“They worship God,” he countered, matching her volume, but his tone was uneasy - strained.

“They think you’ve done so much for them, that you do it just by the grace of God,” she spat, trying not to get visibly angry as she spoke. “You don’t do it for them. You do it to feel better about yourself, about all you did as Legate.”

Joshua kept his voice steady. “If I were doing it for them or for me, could you truly tell? And would it truly matter? They reap the benefits of what I have given them, regardless of intent behind the gifts.”

Sara was starting to feel sick the more he spoke. “This is wrong, you know it is.”

Joshua sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I have been many things in life. Most often I was wrong. That is why I reside with these people. They do not know how to be as wrong as I have been, and from them I hope I can learn.” He dropped his hand, staring down with eyes unfocused. “Perhaps when I have learned enough, God will forgive my sins. Until then, I carry them with me. Each spark of pain I feel is a reminder of another man I have killed, a woman I have enslaved, a child I have stolen. I fear my body will give out long before I have felt every last spark, but perhaps I will make it to the end and find redemption on this path.”

Every work he spoke was pure snake oil, Sara was almost sure. But something in his gaze made her wonder.

“Are you sorry for everything you’ve done?” she asked, wondering whether or not he would lie.

After a moment, he told her, “I am sorry for most of it. But sorrow will do little to right my wrongs.”

She held back her laugh. Perhaps that might at least have been truth, and that was enough to satisfy her for the moment.  
 

* * *

 

 

The procession into Dead Horse Point’s village proper was simpler than Sara had expected. First the elected leader of the party announced the return of the warriors, and waited for everyone in the settlement to gather outside. Once there was sufficient enough of an audience, the missing warriors carried in their feast – proceeding through the entire length of the settlement to a large clearing at the far end. The leader announced the arrival of guests, of Joshua Graham and his companion and friend Sara … Hernandez.

She laughed, not surprised that he hadn’t been able to remember all of her middle names, and not truly caring either. Then it was their turn to go through the village, dragging along their slain gecko between them. At Joshua’s behest, she’d left it untrimmed. Apparently the claws and bones were good for tools and jewelry, and should not be wasted.

Perhaps the best part of the day was when Joshua vanished for an hour, returning in all fresh bandages and clean clothes. Sara couldn’t quite hold back a chuckle as she realized that he wouldn’t exactly look like a new man that way, but at least he wouldn’t smell so terrible as he had towards the end of their journey.

“Took you long enough,” she teased. “Even I don’t take this long to get ready for a party.”

“You have less work to do,” Joshua said pointedly.

“Careful, Mr. Graham. That was almost a compliment.”

“My apologies. I simply meant that the chore of wrapping every inch of my body in linen is a tedious and time-consuming one.” He sat down beside her on the ground. “As you haven’t the need for it, you should not require more time than I do.”

“Of course. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m beautiful enough already.”

“Nothing to do with that at all,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him.

Before Sara could respond, the music started up loud again and a dance sprang up around them. It was wild and beautiful, and fun was being had by all, but Sara just didn’t have the energy to want to join in herself. So she and Joshua stayed together out of the way and looked on. They barely spoke again until the music began to calm down – it was just too loud for them to hear each other anyway.

“Have they always been like this?” Sara asked him, stretching her arms up over her head for a moment before digging back into her plate of food. “Loud and happy?”

“No. Before they were loud and tired. Now they don’t live in a nomadic lifestyle, and they don’t need to worry about packing up and moving at the right times throughout the year.” He shook his head, laughing. “But they always were loud.”

A woman a few years younger than herself sped past Sara, dragging a man along behind her by the arm. It didn’t take long for their giggles to turn into certain other types of noises once they reached the adobe hut they’d been aimed at.

Joshua sighed, still laughing quietly. “Yes. They have always been very, very loud.”

While the couple had been the first to run by them excitedly, they certainly weren’t the last. Numerous other tried with both greater and lesser attempts at stealth to head back into the houses in pairs, or groups. Nobody blamed any of them – it had been months since some of these people had seen their lovers. A little bit of boisterousness was expected of them.

Sara picked away a piece of gristle from the gecko steak she’d been picking at all evening. “Food’s good,” she said quietly, nodding to reinforce her lackluster words. She wasn’t lying, it was delicious – cooked just enough to be hot but still tender and juicy. They’d used some sort of spices on the meat that she wasn’t familiar with, but it was a good flavor that she knew she’d crave at only the most inconvenient times in the future.

Joshua leaned over to hear her better, but she didn’t have anything more to say. What could she say when everyone was going home to start the next part of the evening’s festivities, while she herself was sitting in a corner wondering what was next? To make matters worse, they were quickly the only ones left but for a few lonely elders whose loved ones were no longer alive to celebrate with – taking care of the younger children and entertaining them before putting them to bed.

The noises of men and women enjoying themselves together were only getting louder. When she realized that this was likely to be going on all night, she gave up.

“Perhaps it’s time to retreat,” Joshua said eyes looking anywhere but at her as he spoke. “If you are finished with your meal, you are more than welcome to join me in my home. It’s a bit farther away from the core of the settlement, and will be quieter there.”

Sara nodded enthusiastically and scrambled to her feet, following behind him as he took a noticeably long route that went along the outside of the settlement, rather than right through the middle of it. Unfortunately, that only meant they were witness to a few of the couples visually as well. It wasn’t the first place Sara had been where sex wasn’t necessarily kept hidden behind closed doors, but it was certainly the site of the most of it.

When they reached Joshua’s hut, she was sad to realize that not only did these sounds drift in through the windows, but she would again be sharing close quarters with him. Alone. At night. While thoughts drifted through her mind that, when coupled with all the audio queues around them, made the space between her thighs throb.

Joshua, for his part, had dutifully laid out his sleeping mat on the floor, leaving the bed for her use instead. She almost thanked him for it, as he settled down to read psalms before bed, but a better idea wormed her way into her mind instead.

“Better to go with the flow than to struggle against the tide,” she muttered, kneeling down beside him.

He gave her a silent look that she had always interpreted as a quirked eyebrow and a question. Instead of voicing an answer, she carefully took the book of psalms out of his hands and set it on the small table beside the bed. He had no noticeable reaction, so on with the plan she went.

She straddled his hips, watching his calculating eyes and not quite sure she cared what he felt about her right then so long as it meant he wasn’t going to reject her advances. With the sounds of dozens of other couples drifting through the settlement she was fairly certain that she wasn’t going to be getting much sleep for the next hour no matter what she did. Better to find someone to pass the time with than to simply hash it out on her own – that had always been her way. Besides that, the idea of bossing Joshua around for a little while was _very_ appealing.

He didn’t push her away. “Are you certain this is what you want?” he asked instead, not moving as she settled her hands against his chest. He watched her expression for even the slightest twitches beneath her skin, obviously wondering just what she was really up to.

“I want to sleep tonight,” Sara said, shrugging her shirt off over her head. “With all this?” she gestured vaguely around the settlement. “I’d be lucky to block it out if I asked you to hit me in the back of the head. Much easier just to go with it. Get it out of everyone’s systems. More fun to do that with someone else than to do it alone, hm?”

“Quite true,” he said with a slow, conceding nod. Joshua’s eyes lingered along her wide, curvy hips.

“Why Mr. Graham, I’m starting to think you might really be human under all that.” She pressed one bandaged hand against the skin his eyes drank in, and though it meant he was leaning back on only one arm he didn’t remove it. “Don’t let me down after all this time!”

Joshua shook his head, eyes squinted in what must have been a grin, and let his fingers drift up her middle. He let them linger high on her breastbone, poised to easily wrap around her throat if he chose, but instead he ran a single finger across her chapped lips. She licked it playfully, almost surprised to find it tasted exactly like any other skin.

“Only a devil like you would lead a pious man to sin so willingly,” he muttered. “Perhaps God will accept it as an act of charity – to allow you your sleep after you’re too worn out to stay awake any longer.”

Maybe he really was human after all. Or maybe he really was the demon he’d always been made out to be. Sara didn’t really care. Whatever he was, he was convenient at the time.

 

* * *

 

 

The problem with convenient men was that they were always still there when she woke up – and that was, quite honestly, the exact opposite of convenient. She didn’t make a habit of falling into bed with men she all around disliked. The fact that it had been so easy was honestly a bit concerning to her. She had made it to the far side of Utah, just as she had hoped. It was time to get going. Her toes tingled in anticipation of the walk ahead.

Joshua was awake long before her, as always. Looking back, it seemed she couldn’t really remember ever waking up before him – perhaps he just never went to sleep. But he said nothing as she got up and dressed, and she said nothing in return.

For the most part, her belongings were already packed up and ready to go. Some of her shirts had been washed at some point during the previous day and needed to be rolled and put away, but she hadn’t bothered to take out anything else. There was no reason to take out the mementos of her travels, and there was nothing new to add to them. She’d been given one of the claws from the gecko she had taken down with Joshua, but it was set on a cord littered with small clay beads, and she draped it back around her neck where the eldest of the Dead Horse women had placed it the day before. Besides that, the only thing she’d gained was the gun Joshua had given her, and that would stay at her side until her revolver was fixed.

“I’m leaving,” she said, finally, once everything was set for her to leave. Her canteen was nearly empty, but could be filled on her way out of the village.

“I gathered that impression,” Joshua said with a nod. Some of his bandages were askew, revealing slivers of the skin beneath, but in the dim light of dawn it was barely visible.

“You’ve been a pain in the ass since I’ve met you.”

“…you have been less than a vision of grace and kindness yourself.”

“Thank you. I didn’t want to be one.” Sara shrugged her pack onto her shoulders. “You’re good to travel with, but I don’t want to stay any longer with you. I need to go East.”

“If you follow the river for the better part of a day you will come to the first of the civilized towns. From there they can point you better than I can. Stay to the far side of the riverbank. You’ll avoid the cazador nests that way.” Joshua stood, adjusting his clothing, and held back the simple curtain door for her.

“I’ll do that.” Sara hated goodbyes. Not because the upset her, but because they were always so awkward for everyone involved.

Joshua nodded. “I hoped you would. It would be unfortunate to find your body along the river. A shameful waste.”

She winked at him, despite herself. “Maybe I’ll swing by this way again someday. Hopefully not. I don’t want to cross that canyon ever again.” The sun was just beginning to creep up into view, spilling fresh light into the small hut. It was time to get moving. “Maybe I’ll see you again anyway. Maybe not. We’ll see.” Pressing past him into the chill morning air, she started back through the village to the freshwater spring they drew their drinking water from.

“May you find what you’re looking for out there,” he called after her. “I would hate to think of you wandering for so long and finding no answers in it.”

“I don’t need answers.”

“Then all I can say is _may peace be with you_.”

In truth, she didn’t want peace either, it left things just a little too uninteresting. “Goodbye, Mr. Graham.” She didn’t look back at him as she spoke. She knew exactly what he’d look like anyway. A core as black as sin, wrapped up in white linen. 

**Author's Note:**

> This TOTALLY didn't go how I planned it in just about any way, but it was super fun taking part in this Big Bang! I expected more combat, more snark, more smut, and ended up with very little of all three! Just goes to show how writing goes how it wants, rather than how you plan. Thanks for reading =)
> 
> [[Previously titled: The Crankiest Bitch North of the Dam.]]


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